Positivity 24/7/365

Announcing the JayMohr.fans Store!

Darrin and his family have fallen on tough financial times due to his injuries and chronic pain. But we wanted to do something more than have a t-shirt drive. And so this JayMohr.Fans Store was born. See the “Store” link at the top of this page. Thanks to JJ for putting it on the front page of JayMohr.com as well.

We helped Darrin set up an account with Café Press and a business model that will generate some ongoing income for him. When you buy a shirt or other merchandise here, the profits (difference between list price and item cost) go directly to Darrin and his family. He manages the designs and sets the prices. Since we’re using Café Press, merchandise is printed and shipped directly to you when you order.

We’ve started with two designs:

The back of each shirt has a JayMohr.fans logo, 3 inches wide, shoulder high:

We’ll be adding designs every month, honoring Mohrriors who do great (or funny) things. When you buy, you help out D So please visit the store often!

Behind the scenes…

Since Dean Montgomery passed away, I’ve heard from a few people who want to carry forward what he did with T-shirts and the #THTC and all that. I’ve been conflicted on this. I don’t think anyone is going to just pick up where Dean left off and run with it because nobody else is Dean. From the times I spoke with him, I know that he had invested more than pocket change into the venture and that there was no way he was breaking even when you count production cost, shipping, time, and love. I also know that it wasn’t a loss-leader scheme to get a few people’s bigger business. He genuinely loved doing the shirts and avatar designs and genuinely loved all the cool people he got to know doing it. I’m not opposed to one or more people carrying it forward. I’ve told people that they need to ask for permission and blessing from Dean’s survivors. To do what Dean did for more than just a couple of shirt runs, you’re gonna really need to love doing that, or the tedium and expense will wear you down quickly.

When @TheJoeFresh approached me about his and @BobbyNachos’ idea to make T-shirts to raise money for Darrin, I was concerned that a lot of effort could go into raising not a lot of money. I hear that JJ’s advice to them was that “they could probably sell 50 of any design”. Multiple 50 by $5 or $10 markup, and it’s really not a lot of money for the effort of designing shirts, putting up cash to order them, taking orders, and mailing them.

But there has been a demand for some T-shirts that bring this community together. Dean met that demand quite well, because he loved doing it. Bobby, Joe, and I looked at this whole business problem, and figured out that we could do something for Darrin and involve Darrin in an ongoing effort. It won’t make thousands of dollars per month, but will help Darrin and his family a little bit on an ongoing basis. We’ve given Darrin a starting point. He’ll be managing the store, soliciting designs, and making this his thing from this point forward. With Café Press hosting the store and handling fulfillment, there’s no up-front money investment and quick turn-around on orders, a win for everyone, including all of you who want cool shirts to celebrate what this community is all about.